“There was a taco business here, and those people were leaving,” says Matthew Lief, who owns Landhaus with Michael Felix and Maria Dela Cruz. “They had a cart, and David Rosen — the owner of the Woods — had tried our BLT at Smorgasburg, so he emailed us and asked if we wanted to step up and do the food. We bought the cart a year and a half ago. Building this kitchen took a little longer than intended.”

With the permanent location, the Landhaus team makes good on its original intent — before Smorgasburg, the group planned to do a beer hall. Once they found a place among the outdoor market vendors, though, those plans fell by the wayside. The BLT commanded lines, and Landhaus soon expanded into bacon on a stick and lamb burgers, sourcing meat and produce from a friend with a farm upstate.

With the opportunity at the Woods, they got another crack at the beer garden, though they spent the first year and a half of their tenure here mostly catering to late-night crowds. With this new kitchen, Lief, Felix, and Dela Cruz, are able to continue to explore American classics while dabbling in more of the Mexican, Korean, and Filipino heritage and recipes that the partners bring to the concept.

Now that its open, Lief insists that they’re “not trying to be a full restaurant,” but they’ve added food runners and more substantial items to cater to neighbors who might actually stop by for dinner before the Woods turns into the party beacon it becomes later. Lief cites dishes like steak with bone marrow butter and fries, ribs, crispy Hudson Valley duck wings, and a Pimento cheese crab rangoon. Landhaus will also offer a rotation of blue plate specials, so be on the lookout for things like a pork chop with creamed corn.

And this iteration of the concept shares the original focus on local ingredients: “Across the street is North Brooklyn Farms, a community space and urban garden,” says Lief. “We’ve been getting greens and edible flowers and herbs from them, and they helped us remodel the backyard with a nice planting.” That remodel also added table to the Woods, a first for the bar.

‘The World Trade Center was conceived by vested interests, promoted by pressure groups, brought into being by a handful of powerful men for reasons of monetary gain or personal pressure, and indirectly subsidized by the taxpayer’